Perhaps in the immediate aftermath of September 11, this was a book that was a shock to those who read it, but 5 1/2 years on it's all nothing new.
In fact, the book has the feel of being hurridly thrown together at times, which is perhaps why it never seems to hold a consistant argument. And while it does raise some valid points about US foreign policy that could be built upon, Parenti instead often goes of on tangents that seem more like small rants.

excellent and brilliant, all points are backed by hard fact and proof. For those not knowing what to beleive in this day and age, stop listening to jingoistic corporate-media blitherings and take the time to step back and read this book. Parenti unabashedly and unapologetically deals the truth clearly and concisely. Many oppose him but thats no suprise to me: "The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth." ~ H.L. Mencken

Required reading for History class and now need to write a paper

The moral of the story is as follows: Every tragic event that occurs is quickly utilized in the name of political advantage.
The book describes various changes that have taken place since 911 which would have not occurred otherwise and are not known to the general populous. The transition is then made to the wars in Afganistan and Iraq, which follow as a natural consequence. Reasons for these wars are also given. Parenti's logic is so strict that is impossible to find a fault in it. References are provided for all the statements that are made.

I'm thankful that there are writers like Mr. Parenti who are willing to tell the truth about why the world works like it does. He's not a conspiracy theorist, as some allege. However, he logically explains that a powerful minority of the Earth's population has similar self-interests, thus creating a system that skews policies, economies, and laws in their favor.

September 11 was an opportunity for the world to wake up and change course toward a cooperative and peaceful future. Instead, the Bush administration, the oil/fossil fuels industry, and the military/weapons industry steered us toward more of the same old mistakes, arrogance, and ignorance. Mr. Parenti clues us in on who benefits from walking down the same road we've been so many times.

Incidentally, Oliver North never mentioned bin Laden in his Iran/Contra testimony, as a previous reviewer asserts, and this bit of right-wing mythology is well-debunked at snopes dot com (http://www.snopes.com/rumors/north.htm).

My father served in the Marine Corps Air Service in China in the 1920's. When I was a child, I asked him what he was doing there. "Making the world safe for Standard Oil", was his reply. Parenti's essay brings focus and clarity to that statement uttered more than 40 years ago. Agree or not with Parenti, his devastating account of the antecedents to the horrible attacks of 9/11 and our response should give pause for careful reflection of what we are and where we are going. One point of disagreement. Parenti presents most Americans as uninformed victims of a careful, calculating government grand plan. My position is that most Americans are too damn fat and happy to care, if unknowlingly complicit as he aserts -- just look at election turnouts.

Michael Parenti's comments on the September 11 catastrophe are to the point: it was a horrendous shock for everybody and certainly for Main Street, chloroformed by the media's rosy picture of the state of the Union.

In a small book like this one, the author could not develop the deeper reasons, which, he beliefs, are behind this horrible attack and why the US is so hated in certain parts of the world: the US military interventions and the military aid to protect the various ruling oligarchs and multinational corporate investors, to destroy reformist movements, labour unions, peasant organizations, democratically elected reformist governments.
In a nutshell: the imperialist goals of the US to create a global hegemony (a world of client states).

Although his analyses are globally right, he should have paid more attention to the fact that the attacks were carried out by Muslim fundamentalists, who were partially (the Taliban) financed by the US.

Like Gore Vidal, he fulminates rightly against the massive US defence budget, the biased media, monopolistic free trade, big money corporate capitalism, religion laced with violence and intolerance and environmental damage.

This is a harsh, but much needed, pamphlet, because it lays bare some undeniable facts, which are crucial for world politics.
Not to be missed.

I have all his books and many of his tapes. His work is well-researched and documented. He and Chomsky and others do a great job providing Americans with information that is not available in the mass media. However, most Americans do not go beyond Time Magazine and Dan Rather for their information and so they will likely be disturbed by the contents of this and other publications. It will indeed shake up your belief system but that's what truth does; it makes one uncomfortable and demands change.

Mr. Parenti presents a compelling case as to what may have caused the attacks on 11 September 2001. To be sure, the actions of the American government as well as American based corporations had an influence on the overall situation leading up to the attacks. I found it curious that he did not link O. North's testimony to Congress about his security system that indicated that he (Lt. Col. North) was afraid of Osama Bin Laden (read the transcripts) in the package of reasons.

The book begins to fail when the author starts linking to the "general conspiracy theory" that an unidentifed group of individuals/corporations are actually ruling the world. In my opinon this devalues the text in that these theories of conspiratorial efforts have been in effect for generations. The problem is that they are attributed to varried groups that, more often than not, are violently opposed to each other.

Read this book for a background on how the actions of our businesses and government have set the stage for radicals to plan and execute an attack on America.

I've only recently begun reading the works of Michael Parenti, but I can not recommend them enough to those uninitiated with his analysis of history and contemporarty American culture.

In particular, this work on the tragedies of 9-11 takes a very broad view, looking not only at the acts themselves or their immediate aftermath, but also at decades of preceding policies as well as the propaganda that accompanied them, AND how it relates to the ongoing and newly implemented policies of today.

Mr. Parenti is lesser known than many other social critics, and you won't often see or hear him on the commercial media, but I strongly suggest that you do yourself a favor by embarking on a google search for his writings and lectures. You'll find many of his talks available, in audio and text format (even some video), available free on the web. I've listened to many of them and found them to be entertaining, challenging and very informative.

So, please, if you're not familiar with Michael Parenti, don't take my word for it, listen or read for yourself. But I stronly suggest that you don't pass up the opportunity to hear his thoughts on these events. The book is short, very readable and thorougly enlightening. Do yourself a favor and listen to what he has to say.

Josh